Kevin Keatts: "We Punch the Clock Every Day"
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts met with the media following the Wolfpack's 85-73 win over Wake Forest Saturday afternoon.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Keatts’ press conference. An abbreviated transcript is provided below.
Opening Statement
Give our guys a lot of credit. When we left Carolina, we didn’t like anything about the way we played in the first half, but if there was a silver lining, the silver lining was we played well in the second half, and then Paul McNeil played well. Hence, I wanted to shake the lineup up, and I looked at a couple different situations and decided to insert Paul into the lineup, and I’m proud of him. He had a career-high 24 points. Dontrez Styles had a double-double, Michael [O’Connell] had 13 assists. I thought our defense was really, really good. It’s a good Wake Forest team. We did a good job. I thought we were locked in. We just did not like the way we played on Wednesday. I give these guys a lot of credit because [a reporter] asked me a question after the [North Carolina] game, “How do you get them up?” We punch the clock every day, no matter what the situation is. We’re looking at a one-game situation, and I'm proud of our guys for how we responded and played.
On his defensive trust in McNeil...
He’s grown, man. God, if you would have seen him the first month or two... What a talented high school scorer, but he couldn’t guard anybody. He didn’t have any interest in guarding anybody. He wasn’t making his shots, and he wasn’t in shape. He really loved college basketball and loved college life at NC State. I had to bring him in at one point like, “Are you partying every night?” But that’s what freshmen do. The maturity he’s shown, that he’s gotten better and he’s grown, and he’s doing it through practice — and all three of our freshmen, they show up every day about an hour before practice, get a lot of shots in, and are staying consistent. It’s starting to pay off for him, so I’m happy for him. I trusted him, obviously the way he was playing, and I thought he did a good job finishing the game.
On how important O’Connell is to the success of this team...
I think he’s been important over the last couple of years because he’s the guy that, when you look at Michael — and I wish he would have had a double-double, he’s one point away — we’ll ask to see if we can find him one point somewhere from the game that may have been missed — he takes a lot of abuse. He is a pass-first guy, and he needs some guys around him to be successful. I thought tonight he did a great job of finding everybody. He’s kind of our calming factor. I didn’t think Trey [Parker] was having a good game. We went with Michael a little bit longer, and I’m proud of him. Thirteen assists is a lot of assists, and I’m happy for him, and it helped our team.
On the increased turnovers...
I hate turnovers, and the last couple of games, we’ve turned the ball over in the first half more than we’ve done all year long. I thought we made some lazy passes early, but I thought we needed those four guards to be able to move the ball a little bit. You look at us; what’s impressive is we had 23 assists on 29 field goals, so we really shared the basketball. You guys have covered us all year long. I told you, “I said when this team shares the basketball and everybody plays well, and we get 10 points, 24 points, 22 points, and nine points, we’re a good basketball team.” But we don’t have the one guy that can score every game, so we need everybody to play together. One of the first things I look at with this team is, “How many assists do we have on how many made field goals?”